Study: Couples Love Kissing Right

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Study: Couples Love Kissing Right

The couple in Auguste Rodin's masterpiece, The Kiss, turn their heads to the right to kiss each other. A couple's first kiss can be mellifluously passionate. Or it can be a cacophony of clashing teeth, locking braces and bumping noses.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a study in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature might help prevent the latter scenario. A German researcher has found that your kissing partner is twice as likely to turn his head to the right than to the left for smooching.

Onur Güntürkün, a psychology professor at the Ruhr-University of Bochum in Germany, came to this conclusion after spying on 224 kissing couples in airports, railway stations, parks and beaches in the United States, Germany and Turkey. He estimated their ages from 13 to 70.

The right-tilting preference, Güntürkün said, is likely the ancestor of a predilection born in the womb. During the final weeks of gestation and for the first six months after birth, babies develop one of the earliest examples of "behavioral asymmetry" – turning their heads to the left or the right.

Psychologists believe this influences the subsequent development of a preference for moving the nose to the left or right when puckering up.

"Here I show that twice as many adults turn their heads to the right as to the left when kissing, indicating that this head-motor bias persists into adulthood," Güntürkün writes in his paper.

But don't assume you should always move in for a kiss with your head tilted to the right.

In a survey of photographs posted at the website Sheila's Kissing Booth, 15 out of 24 shots – almost two-thirds – showed lip-locked couples leaning to the left. Sheila's shots feature scenes from the film The Princess Bride, Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser on the TV show Mad About You, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets and John Ritter and an unidentifiable woman all tilting left while smooching.

Courteney Cox Arquette (Monica) and Matthew Perry (Chandler) from Friends appear to lean to the right. (Wired News acknowledges the possibility that digital photographs posted on the Internet could be transposed.)

The right or left kissing preference cannot be directly associated with right- or left-handedness, Güntürkün said, because humans are eight times as likely to be right-handed than left and only twice as likely to tilt to the right for a kiss. Right- or left-handedness is either influenced by environmental factors or unrelated to in-the-womb head turning.

But, like the kissing bias, favoring the right foot, ear and eye are twice as common, which led the researcher to believe those traits might all be determined by the head-turning preference in the womb.

In the feathered kingdom, all of those traits seem to be related, the paper reports.

"In birds, a preference for turning the head to the right before hatching induces motor, visual and cognitive asymmetries," Güntürkün writes.

What does this all mean for the lovers of the world?

Experts at advice sites such as Kissing.com and AskHeartBeat.com say the Nature kissing study doesn't give aspiring Cassanovas much to go on.

Michael Christian, who uses the pen name William Cane, runs Kissing.com and wrote The Art of Kissing (which has been translated into 19 languages), among other kissing and hugging oriented titles.

Christian also hosts "kissing shows" at universities across the country where about 30 volunteers from the audience demonstrate their kissing techniques.

Kissers are sometimes, he said, uncertain of which way to turn their heads, but the Nature study won't help.

He thinks the paper is a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "after this because of this."

"There's probably no connection (to behavior in the womb)," he said. "The reason that people turn their heads to the right is probably simple hemisphere dominance."

Deborrah Cooper, who runs AskHeartbeat.com, said the study would not affect the advice she give on her site.

"I read the study with amusement," she said. "I can say without a doubt that I have never been asked which direction the head should be turned. To those novices, I merely suggest that noses be moved into a convenient position in any way the kisser finds comfortable."

The site – where you can also purchase instructional kissing books and videos – even has a special page for kissers who wear orthodontic braces.

"Don't think of them as braces," the site says. "Instead, think of them as if they were a tongue ring or jewelry. By thinking of them differently, you'll subconsciously attract more guys to you!"

Sheila's Kissing Booth does address the positioning of the head while kissing, but Sheila leaves it to kissers to figure this out organically.

"As the two of you move closer together, tilt your head slightly to one side," the site says. "If you don't, don't worry about it. Your partner will still tilt their head slightly so your lips meet on a slight angle or they will kiss you straight on. If you can see which way your partner's head is tilting, tilt your head slightly in the opposite direction."